Calorie Apocalypse Dinner

Can you gain  1 – 2 pounds of fat from eating a single meal? Yes, you can. You just have to make the right, er, wrong choices.

How Many Calories Can You Get?

Let’s go on a journey into a caloric dreamland. Or nightmare, depending on your perspective: how many calories could you potentially consume if you picked the worst (or best, perspective again) US restaurant chains had to offer and combined it all into a single dinner?

Have a look at what we can get if we make an effort:

Starter: Chili’s Honey Chipotle Crispers With Chipotle Sauce – 2,040 kcal

For the starter we head to Chili’s, who offer the delicious Honey Chipotle Crispers with a sauce of the same name. If you are the average woman, whose daily calorie allowance to maintain weight is around 2,000 kcal, you just now had your entire share. But we, quite literally, have just started, so you better don’t think you get out of this before we had the last gulps from our shakes!

Drink: Baskin Robbins Heath Bar Shake – 2,310 kcal

Because after those Crispers you of course will probably develop quite a thirst. Let’s get something at Baskin Robbins to flush it all down with, as they have the Heath Bar Shake, that some might consider a meal on its own. Actually it’s two, no, three meals on its own.

“Wear your sundae” – as love handles?

Main Course: Romano Macaroni Grill’s Spaghetti And Meat Balls With Meat Sauce – 2,430 kcal

Ah, the Mediterranean diet! Everyone says it’s healthy, so what can go wrong when we trust ourselves to the people at Romano Macaroni’s? With their meat ball spaghetti (in meat ball sauce) the average male can fulfill his daily caloric requirements (app. 2,400 kcal) in one sitting. But of course you already had the Chipotle Crispers!

Dessert: Dairy Queen’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard – 1,320 kcal

Make room, because you still had no dessert! And here comes Dairy Queen’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard, who I suggest should be renamed to “Thermonuclear Caloric Warfare”. A dream in everything that’s sweet and tasty, even coming with its own fan club.

Grand Total: 8,100 kcal

Let’s recap: If you are an average man of normal weight, you need about 2,400 kcal per day and for the average woman it’s 2,000.

To gain one pound of weight, you need to consume 3,500 kcal on top of what you need to keep your weight steady. Taking that average male and his 2,400 kcal as an example, he would have eaten an extra 5,700 kcal beside what was needed for weight maintenance. This translates into about 1 1/2 lbs of gained body fat from one single meal.

Of course, this “sample” dinner is not meant quite seriously. Who in their right mind would trudge four different fast food places to get the maximum amount of calories together (at least I hope you don’t). But imagine how many extra calories you consume per week if you regularly visit these places, whose other menu choices aren’t exactly lightweight either.

If you know fast food choices with even more calories, let me know. Maybe we can even break the caloric barrier at 10,000 kcal.

Pictures courtesy of “Krista” and Tim Walker.